To piss with that. He wasn’t stiffing that attorney for twenty-five grand, and the two thousand dollars he had left after that wasn’t going to get him far. And although Matthias could send a guy into the ring who could kill him in front of a hundred witnesses and still make it look like an accident, what choice did he have? He was no one’s charity case—he’d learned that long ago—and he wasn’t about to be in debt to Jim, either, just to settle an old score.

In ten minutes, he could earn another a grand or two. And if he got shanked by Matthias’s second in command, the one who’d showed up last night? It didn’t really matter. He’d known the moment he bolted from the team that a funeral was waiting for him, except he was like someone with a mortal disease: The cure for going AWOL was a bitch and likely to kill him, but at least he was putting up a fight and dying on his own terms.

Staying in XOps? Shit, he was dead even though he had a heartbeat.

He was so hollow at this point he might as well be in his grave.

“I’m fighting,” he said. “And I’ll give you my stuff to hold while I’m in the octagon. That’s as much help as I’ll accept tonight.”

No reason to tell the guy how much cash was in the windbreaker. And Heron already knew about the guns—but clearly wasn’t of a mind to use them.

“This is a huge mistake.”

Isaac frowned. “Lot of people would have told you to leave Matthias out in that desert to die, but you brought him back because you had to—and you wouldn’t have let anyone talk you out of it. Same thing here. Either get on board or get out of my way.”

A curse word. Then another. Finally, Jim took a last inhale on the cigarette and ground the butt out on the bottom of his combat boot. “Fine. But I will intercede—are we clear? You get in the ring with the wrong asswipe, I’m going to shut the fight down.”

“Why the hell are you doing this?” Isaac said hoarsely.

“Why the hell did you go out to find me and Matthias that night?”

Memories of two years ago bubbled up and Isaac went back to the desert, back to the moment when the encrypted radio had squawked and he’d picked it up and heard Jim’s thready voice.

Ten minutes was all it took to make the arrangements: medic to their tent, airlift out waiting, and a trauma team over the border, boom, boom, boom. And then he’d sat there and waited for about a minute and a half.